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prevent them relapsing. There is no question that could these
cases be taken in hand, and given a few hours' treatment every
week, we could reduce considerably, if not prevent, relapses.
This question of the After-Care of Tuberculosis cases, whether
pulmonary or surgical, has been one of the great difficulties in
dealing with this disease in England and elsewhere, and the suggestion
made here, while not completely solving it, may go a long way
towards doing so.
3. There are also patients who, for some reason or other, cannot
go to Sanatoria, and it might be possible to help these people a
little by giving them a certain amount of treatment, although, as
mentioned above, they can hardly expect to receive the full benefits
of Sanatorium treatment.
4. At the present time there are some 300 old standing cases
in Bermondsey who have been under treatment at various times,
and would benefit by the sun treatment at intervals. This makes
a total of 1,000 patients per annum who would greatly profit by
such heliotherapy and open air as we could apply in Bermondsey.
I might say that this figure is rather under-estimated than overestimated,
because we want to be careful and avoid exaggeration
either as to the numbers of persons requiring treatment or the
benefits which we hope they will receive.
It will be seen from this that this solarium constitutes a most
important part of our propaganda and, in addition, it will help to
fill up the gap in the present Tuberculosis scheme for the Metropolis
in which little effectual provision is made for after-care or for the
pre-tuberculous.
We also hope by this propaganda to create a bigger demand for
the use of open-air shelters. We have had them for a great many
years, and, owing to lack of demand or want of will on the part of
patients, little use has been made of them, and this is essentially a
question in which the demand for a shelter should come from the
patient. It is proposed, therefore, to make a provision—which will
be found at the end of my report —for additional shelters.